Traditions
by Pickles
Summary: Aya gives his reasons for being so cold. He has always tried so hard....


Hello, all you beautiful people out there! Pickles has had a severe case of writers' block, but it's gone now, at least a little, and she's got some more lovely Aya angst for you! Even though Yohji is her favorite angst whore…  
  
Oi. Also I wrote a song called "The Beauty of Your Sin" and maybe you people would like it. MAJORLY heavy themes of unhappiness in it, people.  
  
But I need to give the warnings for this first. Aya angst, unhappy homes, all that good stuff, and Aya-chan stuff too. Also, original characters. Just one, to be precise, but the point is, it's an original character, and I HATE unwarned fictional characters.  
  
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My father hated me.  
  
He hated everything about me.  
  
No matter what I did, I was never good enough for him. Top grades, university scholarship, dating all the best girls I could get between my looks and the station allowed me, none of it mattered. I could never be as smart as he was, never marry as well has he did, never go to as good a school as he did, never have as a good a job as he did. And I could never, ever live up to what he wanted me to be.  
  
I just wish I knew why.  
  
My mother loved me, I know that much. I would come home from another three hour cram school session and she would be there with a smile, a hug and a little of rice candy. We would talk, for a while, about how my day was, and she would offer a few words of encouragement to me.  
  
I miss her.  
  
I only wish I missed my father.  
  
He never looked at me, not if he could help it. I think it was the fact that I didn't look the way I was supposed to. I tried so hard – I never wore Western-style clothing around him; I must have owned more kimonos than any other boy in Tokyo. I stayed out of the sun to keep my skin pale, as is traditional for the aristocratic members of society. I even got the traditional Japanese haircut, eartails and all, that got me teased at school for being "out of it." It served only to make me look even more feminine. The earliest thing I can remember is my third New Year's festival. Mother had just got me ready to go down and watch the parade. My father looked at me and snapped that I looked like a little girl, not the son he was supposed to have.  
  
I couldn't help it! How could I have done anything about it? I was born that way, with the red hair of his mother and the plum eyes of his father. How could I help that the features best suited for my sister were passed onto me from him? If I did not honor the Fujimiya family name, it would be because of faults I got through his genetics.  
  
And the grades – I was always a top student, made fun of for my brains and my quietness. Yet he was not satisfied. I should have played soccer, he said. I should have played baseball, he said. I should have wrestled, he said. Nevermind that I was well towards the top of my karate and ninjutsu classes at the dojo. Nevermind that if I picked up one more activity I would drop from exhaustion. Nevermind that making time would bump off time used for the all-important purpose of dating.  
  
And the girls were never good enough for him. Marry up, he always told me, marry up. If I brought home some girl of ancient heritage, she should have more money. If she had the money, she should be landed. If her family owned a house, she should be more proper, like my mother, couldn't I see that? His precious family name could not be brought such shame. Also, she had to be beautiful. Nothing I did ever hit the mark he set. What could I do? I couldn't be a carbon copy of him.  
  
My sister, on the other hand, didn't care. Her grades were only average, she was outgoing in the extreme, and she played girls' soccer and softball. She would have wrestled, if they had let her on the team. She was, in a way, the son my father never had, just as I was his daughter. Thus, we were both a disgrace to him. It was a matter of the utmost shame that we were his children. I envied her. She was everything I wanted to be. I thought if we could only switch bodies, then we would both be happy. But she was happy, content as she was, and I hated her for it.  
  
I finally found a friend who could understand this in Yamamato Youki.  
  
Youki, too, knew what it was to be a constant disappointment, yet always putting forth more than a full effort. He knew what it was to try to be traditional even when everyone else was Westernizing. He knew what it was to be subjected to constant scorn.  
  
Youki was the son of a geisha.  
  
I was as drawn to him, I think, as he was to me. We passed the top spot in classes back and forth constantly, until one day he came up against something he didn't understand. He asked me for help. Our friendship grew from there, as we discussed the grades, ad why we tried so hard to get them. He was trying to get his father to notice him; I, to get mine to be proud. There is little difference. We were also sparring partners in karate, though he did not attend ninjutsu classes. It was one day as we were changing from gi to street clothes when it happened.  
  
He kissed me.  
  
I was confused at first, and so was he. We avoided each other for a bit. Then I admitted to him that this attraction, strange as it was, was mutual. Our friendship changed into something more. I think, towards the end of it, that we may have been getting a bit obvious. But he loved me. He made me feel as though I was good enough, for the first time in my life. And he was the first person aside from my family that I truly loved.  
  
We were beginning to make love for the first time when my father walked in on us.  
  
He jerked me away from Youki, my love, and I saw the look on both of their faces. Youki was in more pain than I had ever seen him. His grey eyes were filled with tears, still hazed with the last traces of barely-born pleasure. He cried out, and reached for me. My father, black eyes flashing with contempt and anger, told Youki he would make sure I would never see him again.  
  
Youki went home and killed himself.  
  
My father, turning to me after I had closed the robes of my kimono, told me I was no son of his, and that until my perversion was gone, I would no longer be seen in his eyes.  
  
My parents died the next day.  
  
My sister went into a coma. I suddenly realized that I didn't hate her for being what I should be. I realized she would not always be there. So here I am, unfeeling except for her. I cannot allow myself to feel. I cannot allow myself to love. No one but her. She gets all my love, now, all my care, because she cannot hurt me by leaving, or dying.  
  
Please, Aya. Wake up. Teach me to love again. 


End file.
